My thoughts on #NEX 🗣
PS: I was too lazy to ask the team, so if I am wrong plz just DM me and I will edit the post later on.

- Security Aspect
NEX token is a security, which legally implies that a holder must be identifiable. At a crowdsale stage, that is done via KYC. When you buy your tokens, you will most likely either have them within the platform oт your NeonExchange account and will not be able to withdraw them to your private NEO wallet, or you will be - but when you would want to transfer them to NeonExchange later on - your KYC will have to match with the wallet you used previously. (otherwise you lose that ‘legal’ trace, so why make it a security then)

- Liquidity Aspect
Switcheo is not allowed to list security tokens, so are not other exchanges, because they are not purely DEXes: there are still legal entities and people behind those exchanges, which are subject to regulations of different jurisdictions. You will probably be able to escrow or OTC your tokens, but it will be quite a hustle dealing with issues like intermediaries and trust.

- Staking Aspect
As far as I understand, I can lock my tokens and choose a period over which those tokens will be locked, which will define my interest rate - those dividends are the exact thing that make NEX a security. But why do I need to stake them? That plays no integral part in the functionality of the system/network like in PoS-based systems, for example, in NuCypher. This simply looks like a staking for the sake of staking = diminishing circulating supply for the sake of artificial token price growth. After all, you don’t lock your shares to receive dividends 🤫

- DEX or…?
Anyway, it was first planned as NEO DEX, but then the path was changed and the scope widened to including tokens of other fabrics - which is good. However, this is no way means that they developed a cutting-edge scalability approach to decentralized exchanges or solved some other architecture issues. For now it is just a hyped ICO. I actually see nothing revolutionary, only promises for now with no code or specifications: neonexchange.org/pdfs/whitepaper_v2.pdf. It also looks hella centralized to me.

- Overall
Yes they are being more fair than other projects. Yes they are making a more community-oriented crowdsale. But apart from that, I am not seeing any substance. Perhaps a lot has been in the works and will be announced later. But don’t just chase hype. For A CEX it is a problem to stick around due to issues of volume and user base. For a DEX, add also architectural issues to that.

Anyway, I would still participate if I had an account because it would be a small bet for me relative to my portfolio size - but if 1K USD is a big part of your holdings, then be careful as you might get stuck for a long time 🦐